Page 84 of The Woman in the Garage

The quick math in my head made me suddenly dizzy.

“Did your uncle have any evidence of a gambling problem? Old receipts from the racetracks? Chips from a casino? Maybe a bunch of sports channels on the TV? Even weird shit?”

“No. Nothing like that. He had a cable package, but it just had basics.”

“I have to ask this, even if it might be upsetting.”

“Okay…”

“Was there any evidence of a drug habit? Needles? Burnt or bent spoons? Powder residue?”

“He definitely liked his beer,” I told him. “He had a lot of beer in his fridge. But just that. I only found one random old bottle of vodka in the basement, looking like it hadn’t been seen since the ‘90s.”

“Okay. So, he’s probably not an addict himself or a gambler. What about his financial situation? Was the house paid off? If so, when? What about the garage?”

“He just paid off the house right before he died. The garage is… doing okay. I feel like, with how busy we are, there should be more leftover. We’re just barely making it.”

“What about his spending? I don’t know if he kept his receipts for—”

“He kept receipts for everything. And he always paid in cash, it seems. He really was a Luddite.”

“Hmm,” he said again, clearly knowing something I didn’t. “Okay. What was his spending? Did he eat out a lot? Did he have receipts for any kind of travel?”

“Actually, it seems like he ate out constantly. I mean… there was no real food in the house. Just the beer and some ice cream. As for travel…”

“What is it?” he asked when I felt my eyes go round.

“He had several receipts, going back maybe a year or two… I don’t remember now because I didn’t think anything of it. But he had several receipts for orders from Mexico.”

“What kind of receipts?”

“For shipping containers. They were marked as car parts, but—”

“The powder in the bags,” he cut me off. “Was it more like powdered sugar? Light and fluffy looking? Or was it a little more crystalline, like sugar? It would be shinier if it was crystalline too.”

“Oh,” I said, racking my brain. I’d been so shocked that I just assumed it was fine powder. But… it had been kind of shiny. “I think it might have been shiny. Why?”

“If the car parts came from Mexico, or anywhere in South America, the powder was likely crystalline and, therefore, cocaine, not heroin. Heroin would have come from the GoldenTriangle in Asia. But for a shipping container to come in with car parts hiding loads of drugs, it would have specifically come from Thailand, since it’s the only area with a thriving automotive industry.”

“Wow. I should have just asked you instead of trying to research anything myself, huh?”

“You didn’t search on your phone, did you?”

“I’m no savvy criminal, but I’m not dumb. I used the library computer.”

“Better. Not perfect, but better.”

“What does it matter if it was heroin or cocaine?”

“Right now, heroin has a slightly higher street value than cocaine. It’s still potentially an insane amount of drugs. But it’s good to know exactly what we’re dealing with. When was the last time you saw a shipment receipt?”

“I don’t remember. It wasn’t long before he passed. It was close to the top of his pile.”

“Okay. What about what port it came in through? Was it New York?”

“No. No, it was the port here.”

“Wait,” he said, standing straight, shoulders squaring. “The port here? In Navesink Bank?”

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